Chris Karns has devoted the last 15 years of his life to DJing — turntablism, to be exact. Known among his peers as DJ Vajra, Westminster-based Karns has an uncanny ability to manipulate two turntables and a mixer into glitchy sounds and musical phrases that sound otherworldly — robotic and musical, soulful and tripped-out.

Karns, 32, is a student of this “scratch” style, and he has developed quite a reputation for it. He DJs every Friday at Round Midnight in Boulder, and he also occasionally travels to play clubs across the U.S. He’s also all over YouTube with his demo videos.

He’s the best DJ in the world right now. That’s not hyperbole. Karns was in London earlier this month competing at the DMC World DJ Championships, considered the pre-eminent international DJ competition. And after a regional win in Denver and a national win in New York, DJ Vajra was crowned the top DJ in the world when he bested an impressive lineup from 20 countries.

“It’s been such a long journey,” Karns said last week after returning from London. “If somebody had told me 15 years ago, when I first started, ‘Hey, you’ll be hanging out with your friends the X-Ecutioners while waiting to hear that you’re the new world champion,’ I would have never believed them.”

The X-Ecutioners are a legendary New York DJ crew with their own DMC titles, and they were invited back to judge this year’s competition.

At the DMC Worlds, each DJ has six minutes to perform a routine of scratching, mixing and beat juggling. With the title, Vajra joins an elite group of DJs that includes Q-Bert, Craze, A-Trak, Mix Master Mike and the late Roc Raida of the X-Ecutioners.

If those names aren’t familiar, it’s because turntablism isn’t quite mainstream in the U.S. But most will recognize their collaborators. Mix Master Mike has been the Beastie Boys’ DJ for nearly 15 years, and rapper-producer Kanye West employed A-Trak as his tour DJ after A-Trak’s DMC win.

The “Paid in Full” effect

Karns’ strange trip started when he was a 9-year-old in Fort Wayne, Ind., and he saw the Eric B & Rakim video for “Paid in Full.” The hip-hop classic got him interested in records and turntables — the unique sound of a needle on vinyl — and when his family moved to Colorado in 1996, he knew he wanted to DJ.

But Karns had other things going on.

“I was going down the wrong path in Indiana,” he said. “I wasn’t a bad kid. But I let myself be influenced by other kids who were in my neighborhood around me. I was getting into more and more trouble, and I would have gotten into a lot more trouble if I’d been caught doing the things I was doing — getting in fights, theft, stealing cars.”

Starting anew in Colorado, he bought a used belt-drive turntable for $20, a used mixer, and found a broken turntable in the trash. After rocking a makeshift belt out of electrical tape for his second turntable, Karns was in business.

But first he had to escape his previous life, which had followed him to suburban Arvada West High School — where he lasted nearly a semester before being kicked out.

“It was culture shock,” Karns said. “I grew up in a pretty diverse area, and I’d never seen an environment in a school like that where there it seemed like 1 percent of the school was a minority. Everybody dressed the same and acted the same and wanted to create these cliques and groups. I’d seen movies like that, but I thought it was fake.

“There was a lot of racist language being tossed around, which is easy to do when the people you’re talking about aren’t there. And it led to a lot of confrontation because I looked different and acted different, and because I was into hip-hop.”

At one point, some aggressive guys at the school made a target out of Karns, he said.

“That didn’t work out for those people because they didn’t realize I was extremely athletic and lifted weights religiously, and I ended up getting the reputation as the scary guy who could blow up at any moment.

“It’s been a long trip. I don’t live that type of lifestyle now. I haven’t been in a fight since those days, thank goodness.”

With his personal life clearing up, Karns lined up his first real gig — with DJ Chonz as the opener for a DJ Spooky and Kool Keith show at the Fox Theatre in 1998. After winning his first battle as Vajra, which means lightning in Sanskrit, Karns was hooked.

In 2000, DJ Vajra competed in Colorado’s second-ever DMC battle, placing in the top six. In 2001, Vajra won the Boulder battle — promising him a spot at nationals, where he would end up competing for four years straight until 2004.

In 2003, Vajra took second place at nationals. In 2004, he took third.

But then came Karns’ hiatus. He was frustrated with himself; after growing and evolving as a DJ, he seemed stuck as a runner-up. He was also swept up in technology, enjoying digital-to-vinyl programs such as Serato — platforms not allowed by DMC rules. He also found himself in a rocky marriage, which has since ended.

But after spending a few years focusing on his two kids — his 6- year- old son and 5-year-old daughter — and a change in the DMC rules that OK’d Serato for the first time ever in 2011, Karns decided to make a run for the prized gold mixer. And it paid off.

Man of the moment

Since he returned from London, his phone has been ringing off the hook, and he has so many e-mails and texts that he hasn’t even started to respond.

“If he works it right, if he keeps himself working and makes the right choices, he’ll have a profitable year and future based on what I’ve seen other U.S. and world champions do with their careers,” said Christie Z-Pabon, who heads up the DMC’s operations in North America.

But the experience has also brought out some reflection for Karns.

“I remember a conversation I had with a friend who taught me how to DJ,” said Karns. “He was thinking about quitting, and I remember telling him specifically as we were watching a video online of DJ Q-Bert scratching: ‘Oh, man, I wanna get as good as this guy one day.’ And he told me, ‘You can’t. It’s impossible.’

“And that was motivation for me. I went back home and was on the turntables constantly, practicing and practicing.”

While DJing will continue to be important to Karns, he’s looking forward to another change to come.

“Once my DJ career winds down, I’d like to possibly pursue a career in some sort of scientific field,” he said. I love the idea of science, pursuing knowledge and collecting data, and I have a very scientific approach to DJing — studying it and taking notes and experimenting with things and seeing what works.”

After years of tinkering — including a troubled childhood and a tumultuous young adulthood — Karns has his life’s chemistry worked out.

Ricardo Baca is the editor of The Cannabist. After 12 years as The Denver Post's music critic and a couple more as the paper's entertainment editor, he was tapped to become The Post's first ever marijuana editor and create The Cannabist in late-2013. Baca also founded music blog Reverb and co-founded music festival The UMS.

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